Several people were gathered in
the kitchen of the House in Patriot; among them was my uncle Ronald;
he was tall and thin and looked as if he were
probably in his late 50s. He was smiling and seemed happy to
see me; I was certainly glad to see him. I wanted to introduce
one person in the kitchen to Ronald, but I couldn't quite
remember Ronald's name; so I made no introductions.

I looked out the large window
at the rear of the kitchen into the backyard; I was surprised by
what I saw. I recalled that a long barn had stood on the right
side of the back yard, and that another long building had stood
on the left side of the yard. But now both buildings were
missing; or rather most of the buildings were missing. The top
parts of the buildings had been torn away, leaving only the
floors of the buildings. I could also see that under the
floors were long basements which had been left intact. I was glad
to see the basements had remained, because I had stored a
large collection of comic books in the basement of the barn. Many
other things had also been stored in the basement; from where
I was standing, I could see the stacks of items in the
barn's basement.

A young fellow
was riding a four-wheeler down the middle of the basement. He was all
the way at the rear of the basement, when suddenly, the floor
above him started to collapse. He began driving wildly toward the
front of the basement, even as the floor began collapsing all
around him, just barely missing him as he raced forward. I
hollered out something and ran outside. Just as I reached the
backyard, the entire floor fell into the basement; the fellow on
the four-wheeler just barely made it out in time.

The result was a big mess.
Everything in the basement was buried by the floorboards; but as
I surveyed the wreckage, I concluded my comics probably hadn't been destroyed. I should be able to dig them out without too
much difficulty.

I walked the length of the
rubble to the rear of the barn, where I found another building
still standing. I walked inside and was surprised to find what
appeared to be a showroom of a hardware store. Many people were
browsing in the room, filled with wood kitchen and
bathroom cabinets set out for display. Apparently the store was
closing down and everything in the showroom was being given away.

I wondered if I might find
something I liked. On one cabinet were sitting some
trophies; I might like one of those, since they were free. When I picked up one of the trophies,
however, I saw someone else's
name on it and I set it back down.

I saw something else which interested me: some
kind of elaborate advertising
sculpture for
Burger King. The front of the sculpture displayed a human-looking chicken,
apparently the mascot for Burger King. I picked up the sculpture from its black
base and held it in my hand. Immediately music began playing. I turned the
sculpture over in my hand and saw the back looked like an intricate
silver lizard, about the size of my hand. The silver lizard was expertly crafted
and obviously of value; I decided I definitely wanted it.

The base
had a space for a second statue; a second
lizard was lying on the counter. I picked up the second lizard and
placed it on the base; the lizard didn't fit perfectly, but I
decided I wanted to keep it anyway. I held onto it, afraid
someone else might grab it if I set it back down on the counter.